Game design is an art and science. The Mini design document assignments are your opportunity to experiment and explore. Consider game designs that are reasonably simply to implement but vigorously pursue fun. Our discussions, lectures and reading should help you contextualize fun and play as they relate to your intended audience.

The Basics:

All mini game design documents must be digitally produced. That means typed, and where images are produced, they must be integrated with typed text and labeled clearly. Sketching is fine and encouraged, but clarity is your main goal. Each game design should be wholly digital, so please scan sketches or produce drawings using Photoshop or similar products. All documents must be uploaded to Niihka as a single PDFdocument by the deadline.

No mini game design documents can exceed 6 pages. All documents must be at least 4 pages. Although game design documents have hit hundreds of pages, for the scope of this course, a 6 page document ceases to be mini. All games must be original work by the student. In accordance with Miami University rules on plagiarism any student copying existing designs or creating work that is knowingly derived from other designs will endure all requisite plagiarism procedures. Have fun. Design your own game.

Grading:

Each mini design documents will be reviewed by the instructor and two other students chosen at random. Much like game contests and the free market, your game designs will be reviewed by a variety of judges. Each reviewer will complete a mini game review sheet. The review sheets will be made available to the original game designer as feedback on their design.

Reviewing

Reviews are required of each student and contribute to a student’s class participation grade. Each reviewing student will hand in their review in an envelope with their name on it. They will get one credit for each satisfactorily completed review. Each student is required to complete a minimum of two reviews for the mini game design document assignment.

Game Design Document Submission

Each student must provide at least three printed copies of their game design document. These copies will be distributed to each reviewer. After the first game design document assignment, the class may organize a “digital exchange program” if preferred (e.g. via Blackboard).

Evaluation:

A: The game design is original, interesting and clearly offers potential for fun. It is clearly articulated through text and/or image. There is little ambiguity as to what would be produced. An A is exciting to the senses, intellect, and imagination or begs to be made.

B: The game design is somewhat original but borrows too substantially from existing game designs. The design is somewhat derivative or could be more clearly articulated. The design may be mediocre, but clearly defined, or the articulation may be mediocre, and the design is original. Since we only understand what you communicate, it much rarer that a mediocre articulation will receive a B.

A "B" is a mildly engaging concept that may need a simple twist to make it wonderful, A work.

C: The game design is generally mediocre. The design lacks any substantial originality or the originality is lost in basic communication issues. Game designs with substantial typos, unclear diagrams, and poorly read images are likely to receive a C regardless of the quality of their ideas. As it goes, a nice car in very bad shape ceases to be a nice car.

Somewhat qualitatively, boring designs may receive a C.

D: Immediate, apparent “errors” in game design or communication are rampant. The design blatantly misses stated objectives or is fundamentally clunky in implied implementation.

A D is not only boring, or unclear, it may not make sense.

F: The design does not reflect college level work, the work is absent, or the design is a copy of commonly known game designs. If you are not familiar with common game designs, review the reading and check the cannon of game designs.

A game design including Puckman, a cute yellow character that chases pellets, collects power pellets, and eats ghosts would receive an F. Even if “Puckman” has a bow in their hair. Seriously, three students of mine once collaborated on a copy of the wikipedia article on Chess with the word 3D appendend to every sentence. Not cool.